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    Tomb Figures From Ancient Egypt

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    Nabil Roufail
    1) Tomb figures called Osiris-canopic figures were placed in Egyptian elite burials from the 18th Dynasty to the Greco-Roman period. They depicted a combination of the gods Osiris, Isis and Nephthys in mummified form. 2) These figures were carved from wood, painted with vivid colors, and inscribed with hieroglyphic texts. They also contained a cavity that held a funerary text or remains of the deceased to aid their afterlife. 3) Studying the collection of over 100 Osiris-canopic figures at the British Museum, the author found they provide insight into the complex production and ritual significance of these objects over more than

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    Tomb Figures From Ancient Egypt

    Uploaded by

    Nabil Roufail
    89 views8 pages
    1) Tomb figures called Osiris-canopic figures were placed in Egyptian elite burials from the 18th Dynasty to the Greco-Roman period. They depicted a combination of the gods Osiris, Isis and Nephthys in mummified form. 2) These figures were carved from wood, painted with vivid colors, and inscribed with hieroglyphic texts. They also contained a cavity that held a funerary text or remains of the deceased to aid their afterlife. 3) Studying the collection of over 100 Osiris-canopic figures at the British Museum, the author found they provide insight into the complex production and ritual significance of these objects over more than

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    Anders Bettum, University of Oslo and postdoctoral fellow, British Museum

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    1) Tomb figures called Osiris-canopic figures were placed in Egyptian elite burials from the 18th Dynasty to the Greco-Roman period. They depicted a combination of the gods Osiris, Isis and Nephthys in mummified form. 2) These figures were carved from wood, painted with vivid colors, and inscribed with hieroglyphic texts. They also contained a cavity that held a funerary text or remains of the deceased to aid their afterlife. 3) Studying the collection of over 100 Osiris-canopic figures at the British Museum, the author found they provide insight into the complex production and ritual significance of these objects over more than

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    89 views8 pages

    Tomb Figures From Ancient Egypt

    Uploaded by

    Nabil Roufail
    1) Tomb figures called Osiris-canopic figures were placed in Egyptian elite burials from the 18th Dynasty to the Greco-Roman period. They depicted a combination of the gods Osiris, Isis and Nephthys in mummified form. 2) These figures were carved from wood, painted with vivid colors, and inscribed with hieroglyphic texts. They also contained a cavity that held a funerary text or remains of the deceased to aid their afterlife. 3) Studying the collection of over 100 Osiris-canopic figures at the British Museum, the author found they provide insight into the complex production and ritual significance of these objects over more than

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    Tomb figures from

    Ancient Egypt
    Anders Bettum, University of Oslo and postdoctoral fellow,
    British Museum
    For the past three months, have had the pleasure of wor!ing on the British Museum"s
    collection of a particular !ind of funerary statues, !nown to Egyptologists as #tah$%o!ar$
    Osiris figures& The Museum has ''( of these figures, originating from various periods and
    many sites in Egypt& The assessment, documentation and registration of the collection
    have been possible due to the new postdoctoral fellowships which were granted by
    the )epartment of Ancient Egypt and %udan for the first time this year *ne+t year"s
    fellowships are now advertised,&
    Anders in the Enlightenment -allery, where the #tah$%o!ar$Osiris figure of #ana!ht *EA.(/., is on
    display&
    From the '.th )ynasty *ca& '0.1$''23 B4, to the -reco$5oman era, Egyptian elite
    burials were often e6uipped with a statue of a deity in the form of a mummy
    *mummiform,& The god in 6uestion is identified as Osiris in the earlier sources, and later
    as the composite god #tah$%o!ar$Osiris& The name 7Osiris" may be familiar to many
    readers from the myth in which he defeats death and becomes the !ing of the dead in the
    8etherworld& Through the funerary ritual, the dead were assimilated with Osiris, hoping
    they too could live on happily in the 8etherworld among gods and ancestors& The statue
    may therefore have been regarded not only as an image of the god, but also of the
    deceased& #tah is one of the principal creator gods from Ancient Egypt, and the merging
    of this god with Osiris resulted in a powerful promise that death would be followed by new
    life& %o!ar, the third member of the triad, was also a popular 8etherworld deity& 9i!e #tah,
    he originates from the ancient capital of Memphis, and the two were often associated
    with one another& All three deities were depicted mummiform in the iconography, #tah
    and Osiris as mummified men, %o!ar as a mummified falcon&
    The magnificent #tah$%o!ar$Osiris figure of 8eswy *EA.(:(,
    ;hat was soon to learn on arrival at the Museum is how comple+ these statues are&
    The figure itself, ranging in height from :< to 3< cm, is carved from one piece of wood,
    plastered, painted in vivid colours and inscribed on the front and bac! with hieroglyphic
    te+ts& For the richest burials, the face and other details of the figure were gilded& The
    polychrome decoration is sometimes coated with a blac!, resinous varnish& #egged to
    the head is a composite crown consisting of two elements= a vertical pair of model ostrich
    feathers emerging from a sun$disc and a hori>ontal pair of ram horns& The false beard on
    the chin is sometimes carved as a separate piece& A peg was left also under the feet of
    the figure, to fit into the mortise in a rectangular base& The base was colourfully painted,
    in some cases with depictions of water basins, lotus flowers and other symbols of
    resurrection, power and life& t was also inscribed with hieroglyphic te+ts& Occasionally, a
    model sarcophagus was carved as a separate piece and mounted to the front of the
    base& On top of the sarcophagus, a small mummiform falcon is perched, facing the
    mummiform figure& A single statue therefore consists of about seven separately carved
    pieces&
    But that is not all& ;hat ma!es the #tah$%o!ar$Osiris figures different from all other
    funerary statues is the peculiar fact that they are not only images of the deceased
    assimilated to certain gods, but also containers of a certain ob?ect& A #tah$%o!ar$Osiris
    figure always has a cavity carved into it, either in the base or in the figure itself& n the
    '.th to the 00nd )ynasties, the contained ob?ect was usually a papyrus inscribed with
    funerary te+ts to aid the transformation of the deceased in the afterlife& The famous
    funerary papyri of @unefer and Anhai were found inside such statues& n later times, the
    papyrus was replaced with a part of the mummy of the deceased or alternatively a
    substitute thereof, a so$called 7corn$mummy"&
    Mummy$shaped cavity in the base of the #tah$%o!ar$Osiris figure of @orend?itef *EA.(:3,& The content,
    which appears to be a mummified lump of grass, is still intact&
    Throughout the more than one thousand years in which these statues were in use, a
    great variety of mechanisms for closing the cavity are attested& Most impressive are
    perhaps the figures that were carved li!e anthropoid coffins, with a case and lid that were
    closed and sealed before being inserted into the mortise of the base& Another common
    type is the model sarcophagus that wor!ed as a sliding lid, and can still be 7clic!ed" into
    place with a simple push to close the cavity&
    t is intriguing to thin! about the time, effort end s!ill that went into the production of these
    ob?ects, and how people living thousands of years ago assembled the statue, filled it with
    its mysterious contents before sealing the cavity and placing the it in the tomb& These
    activities were undoubtedly rituali>ed and carried out by mortuary priests as part of the
    larger funerary ritual&
    This colorful statue *EA .22/, was made as a model coffin& The name of the owner has not yet been
    deciphered&
    ;ith their polychromy and glint of gold, the inscriptions, the comple+ity and mechanical
    aspect, the hidden 7treasure" inside and its connection to grand mythological and ritual
    narratives, the #tah$%o!ar$Osiris figure have always been popular collector"s items& The
    manageable si>e of the ob?ect must also have contributed to their rapid distribution to
    museums all over the world& %tudying the collection of #tah$%o!ar$Osiris figures in the
    British Museum, have come across no less than 0.< related ob?ects& n addition to the
    ''( figures, the collection consist of a number of loose bases, ram horns, ostrich
    feathers, model sarcophagi and mummiform falcons that parted with their figure decades,
    centuries or even millennia ago& Only about a do>en are relatively intact assemblages,
    but this number will hopefully increase as more parts are matched with one another&
    Every piece has now been thoroughly documented for the benefit of researchers and
    curious visitors& The analysis of the materials contained within still remains to be done,
    and will undoubtedly cast new light on a funerary custom that is still poorly understood&

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